


iron bands and silver linings

by thimbleful



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Missing Scene, Parentage Reveal, Pining, Political Jon, Post S7, Romance, in this story jon and sansa both know how they feel and accept it, touches of dark dany but it's mostly focused on jonsa, unusual for me i know but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 04:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleful/pseuds/thimbleful
Summary: When Winterfell finally rises against the horizon, the iron bands with which Jon has bound his heart all snap open with such force he half expects his captor to notice. But she only looks toward Winterfell with a pleased smile on her face and his heart can beat once more, strong and true, for the woman waiting for him on the other side of those walls.A one shot about Jon and Sansa and their love for one another, before he leaves for Dragonstone and after he returns. Post s7 / alternate s8.





	iron bands and silver linings

**Author's Note:**

> So I started this in, like, july lmao. Then multi chapter stories ate my focus and now I'm glad for it, because I could incorporate the teaser hug into it. :') S while it's technically not inspired by the s8 teasers, it's compliant with them.

* * *

 

**JON**

* * *

 

“How did you get these?” Sansa ghosts the tip of her finger over the scars around Jon’s eye. “You never told me.”

He leans back against the fat trunk of the heart-tree and through its ever-red crown gazes at the milky sky. “A wildling warg saw me for what I was.”

“A _warg_?”

“It’s a long story.” He turns his head to her with a tired smile. “A long story for another day.”

The winter wind has kissed her cheeks rosy and red-tinted shadows dance over her face, but otherwise she’s as pale as the snow surrounding them. A flake lands on her cheekbone, another on her lashes, a third on her bottom lip. She licks it off.

“Do you promise?”

His chest moves with a heavy sigh. “I’ll come back, Sansa. I will.”

“You better.”

He nods and looks out over the godswood, picking at the scars that sparked her curiosity. As though Orell haunts him from the nothingness called death, they ache sometimes, those scars, like lightning hitting his bones. When he lies, more often than not, to others, to himself...

“You’re so vain,” Sansa murmurs, nudging him with her shoulder, and he drops his hand to his lap. “Women like scars, you know.”

“They do? Why?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it means you survived something. That you’re strong and brave. That you can protect us.”

“Is that what you want in a husband? Someone to protect you?”

He feels her eyes on him, but he wears the shame over his eagerness on his reddened cheeks and he ducks his head and stares at the ground as though her answer means nothing to him when it means more than it should.

“A husband.” She huffs out a breath. “I don’t know whether I ever want to marry again.”

“That’s a shame. You’d make a good mother.” He glances carefully at her. “A good wife. And it’s what you always wanted, right?”

“What I always wanted… I wanted a good husband. I was stupid enough to think one could be easily found. Now I wonder whether there are any at all.”

“There’s got to be someone out there.”

“Oh? Will you find him for me?” She shakes her head. “I’ve met so many men and most of them are awful. I think you might be the first decent man--the first good man--I’ve met ever since I left home. I wish I could just marry you.” Her mouth falls open with a gasp, eyes wide and the most beautiful shade of blue he’s ever seen. “I didn’t mean--”

“It’s all right. I know what you meant.” He gives her a comforting smile, but she still looks terrified, as if she’ll shoot to her feet and rush out of the godswood any moment and he’s leaving and this could be his last moment alone with her ever and his mouth decides to spill his thoughts, to keep her there in the quiet of the godswood with him for a while longer. “I wish it too.”

Sansa’s lashes flutter, the melted snowflake falling to her cheek in a perfect drop. “You do?”

“Aye. Then we could stay here, together. Take care of the North, rebuild Winterfell. I’d be able to protect you. Wouldn’t let anyone hurt you. Not ever again.”

“And I’d take care of you. I’d do my best to make you happy.”

“Sansa,” he says over the thunder of his heart. “You already do.”

She bows her head, but not fast enough to hide how the rosiness of her cheeks deepens or the smile on her lips blooms. “And what about children?” she murmurs, brushing snowflakes off her skirts. “Would we have them?”

“Aye.” He runs his fingers along the furrows of the roots they’re seated on while his lips reveal wishes better left unspoken. “A son called Robb. I’d want that.”

“Me too.”

“And a couple of girls. And another boy.”

“That many? We’d have to…” She lets her hand fall from her lap to land next to his and Jon holds his breath, watching through the corner of his eye how her little-finger moves closer and closer until it curls around his. “You’d have to. With me.”

“Yeah.” He scrubs his other hand over his beard and looks back up at the sky because he can’t face her when he says it. “I reckon I’d manage.”

Her hand shifts until it rests firmly atop his, her fingers weaving in between his fingers. She gives him a squeeze. “Me too.”

He clears his throat and pulls his hand from her hold. “We should get inside. It’s getting late. And cold.”

“But you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Aye, I’m leaving.” 

“Will you come by my chambers and say goodbye before you leave?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sansa.”

He looks at her then and finds loss in the shimmer of her eyes, a longing in the tremble of her bottom lip, a vow in the touch of his hand cupping her cheek. Leaning into his touch, she closes her eyes and tears fall from her lashes and he wants to kiss them away. She’d let him, he thinks, she’d let him kiss her mouth too. She’d welcome that kiss. She’d return it.

“I will come back,” he says, staring at the tears glittering like crystals against her skin, at the soft curve of her mouth. “I _promise_.”

His heart beats so fast he fears it might break and he binds iron bands around it to protect it (to cage it) and leaves the godswood before his weakness wins.

 

* * *

 

There are days where he thinks he won’t be able to keep his promise. Days of endless wandering over a desolate rock full of enemies and gaolers pretending to be gracious hosts. Days of observing and bowing and biting his tongue. Of lying and pretending and performing--and his scars ache and ache.

One evening, on the boat sailing north when his captor has invited him to sup in her cabin in that way of hers, where even an invitation sounds like a command, she asks him about those scars.

He does what he so often does around her and lies by telling the truth: “A jealous man tried to claw my eyes out.”

“A jealous _man_? I’ve heard of jealous women clawing each other’s eyes out. I didn’t know men did the same.”

Her words paint horrible images in his mind, but his captor smiles as she says them and so he forces himself to smile back lest she finally spies ragged fur beneath the sheepskin he cloaks himself with and sharpens her claws to tear it into ribbons and reveal the duplicitous man beneath. A man whose heart lies caged in his chest, thudding dully against its restraints, when she thinks it beats fiercely, beats for her.

When Winterfell finally rises against the horizon, the iron bands with which Jon has bound his heart all snap open with such force he half expects his captor to notice. But she only looks toward Winterfell with a pleased smile on her face and his heart can beat once more, strong and true, for the woman waiting for him on the other side of those walls. For the woman who’d never spend months wearing him down in order to tame him. (Who tamed him anyway with nothing but a touch of her hand.)

 

* * *

**SANSA**

* * *

 

Jon’s still wearing the cloak she made him after their people called him king. So many times she’s imagined this moment, of him returning home, of him returning to her. Sometimes she feared he wouldn’t come home at all. Sometimes she feared he would come home a changed man. Sometimes, after Littlefinger’s insinuations weaseled their way into her mind and made a nest there, she feared Jon would return with another woman’s cloak hanging from his shoulders, with another woman’s scent still clinging to his skin. But he’s still wearing the cloak Sansa made him.

By now it’s dirty and worn, and when he sinks into her arms and winds his own around her body, it smells of travel and mud and home. It smells of Jon. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, filling her lungs with the scent of him. By the way he angles his head into the crook of her neck and burrows the cool tip of his nose into her warm skin, she knows he breathes her in too. She knows he missed her as desperately as she missed him.

Then his lips find the shell of her ear. “Trust me,” he whispers with an intensity that opens her eyes. “Please. I did what I had to.”

Daenerys Targaryen is observing them with a tight smile on her pretty face and a look in her eyes that fills in the blanks. She’s believes Jon is hers. But it’s Sansa’s back his fingers are digging into, it’s Sansa’s neck he smells, and it’s Sansa he’s loathe to let go of when he should be eager to return to his queen. To his lover. The word twists its way around Sansa’s heart, its edges cutting deep. That woman knows Jon in a way Sansa never will and for a beat it’s as if she can’t breathe.

Daenerys clasps her hands before her, the red leather of her gloves gleaming in the dull winter sunlight, and Sansa knows the woman’s patience is running thin.

Sansa breaks the hug with a murmured, “She’s waiting,” and sees her brother force something resembling a smile on his face as he turns to his queen and beckons her to step forward.

Daenerys believes the North is hers as well. She’s wrong. Jon might’ve offered her his body (he might’ve even enjoyed it), but he’ll never give her his heart.

 

* * *

 

While the steward helps Daenerys and her retinue settling into the guest house, Sansa invites Jon to follow her around the castle grounds so she can show off all their work. She shows him how they’ve fortified their defenses, prepared armor and warm clothes (she and the other ladies have knitted and sewn until their fingers blistered), stocked up food (filled their stores with grain, baked hard bread, salted and smoked meat and fish, pickled vegetables and turnips, dried cod in the cold air), and taught women, and children over ten how to fight. 

No words leave Jon’s lips, but he looks at the fruit of their hard labor and at her with such awe she can’t stop smiling. Once they’re done, he takes one of her hands and holds it with both of his, still with that awed look on his face that brings a blush to her cheeks.

“Sansa…” Smiling, he shakes his head in disbelief. “I knew I did the right thing when I left the North in your hands, but this… You’ve done more than I would expect of anyone. Thank you.”

He squeezes her hand and repeats those last two words with so much feeling it sounds like something else, something he’s never told her but she feels every time he looks at her in quiet moments. And she feels it now, so acutely her heart races in her chest, and she excuses herself with a smile because she has duties as Lady of Winterfell. (Because she craves that feeling so much she must avoid it until the need fades).

 

* * *

**JON**

* * *

 

When he enters his chamber for the first time in months, his finds his captor sitting on his bed and Jon can’t help but recoil.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Daenerys arches a brow at him. “I thought you’d be happy to see me here, in your bed.”

Jon closes the door. “Servants talk.”

“Mm.” She rises to her feet and walks slowly toward him, hands closed around something he can’t see. “Why is your sister staying in the Lord’s chamber?”

“She’s the Lady of Winterfell.”

“You’re the king.”

“I _was_ the king.”

She watches him with wide eyes and soft features and, to the uninitiated she’d look kind, but he’s seen this look before and knows a threat always follows. 

“You hugged her for quite some time.”

“I was gone for quite some time.”

For a moment, Daenerys only looks at him, searches his eyes for the love and want and desire she so desperately craves. She always does this, especially in bed, when all he wants is to close his eyes and think about nothing until it’s over.

“Never betray me, Jon Snow.”

“I won’t,” he says and pain flares up in his scars.

“Good.” She reaches up and strokes his cheek and he tampers down the instinct to flinch, forces warmth into his eyes, and a playful glint lights up hers. “I’d hate to see your pretty hair go up in flames.”

“So would I,” he says with a grin. “I love nothing better than my hair.”

That lures a sweet smile from her. “That’s not true, I hope.”

He softens his eyes. “It’s not.”

His captor’s smile grows and she pushes herself up on tiptoes to brush a kiss to his lips he makes himself accept with a hum. Then she puts down the item she was holding on his nightstand before leaving his chamber. A small box containing leather strings for his hair. It means nothing, but Daenerys must’ve examined it carefully just like she must’ve examined everything else in his room in search for his secrets when he carries all his secrets in his heart. A heart he must remember to bind around her lest she realizes for whom it beats and the most dangerous word in the world leaves her lips (and leaves Winterfell in flames).

Jon shudders, Mance’s moans of pain and panic echoing in his head.

 

* * *

 

Darkness falls early in the North. He’d almost forgotten. Closing his eyes, Jon leans back his head against the fat trunk of the heart-tree and sucks in lungfuls of the crisp winter air. Everything smells wrong in the South and he carried the stench with him. Now he’s in clean clothes and the first cloak Sansa sewed him, at Castle Black, and it smells just right. Above him, the tree whispers its secrets. Bran understands them, Jon’s been told, but all he hears is the wind rustling the leaves, the birds flapping their wings, and boots crunching snow. Even before she speaks he knows it’s his love. The scent of the winter rose oil she drips in her bath fills the air.

“Are you praying?”

“I never pray,” he says and opens his eyes, smiling at Sansa. “You?”

“More and more often. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re facing death. I’m hardly alone in it. This isn’t the private place it once was. Many visit the heart-tree now.” She cocks her head as if hearing something, and sighs. “Like now. Someone’s coming.”

The broken tower rises at the edge of the godswood, its tall shadow mingling with the black fingers dancing on the ground lit by the waxing moon. As children he, Robb, and Theon used to play in there. Once they grew older (and bolder), they sometimes brought girls. Pretty girls from Wintertown who giggled and blushed at the lords’ advances while the short scrawny bastard stood forgotten in a corner with his heart full of longing and his hands empty of soft and warm curves.

“Walk with me?”

He should say no, but duty has robbed him of Sansa’s barely-there smiles and fleeting touches for far too long and so he follows. Even when she leads him into the broken tower and the beats of his heart echo in the hollow room. A lantern stands on the floor and she lights it, its golden glow chasing away the deepest of black.

“We come here sometimes, me and Arya, to talk or just be silent. It reminds us of better times, I suppose.”

“She told me about Littlefinger. I’m sorry for leaving you here with him.”

“You did what you had to do,” Sansa murmurs, eyes downcast.

“Aye. I did what I had to do.”

She licks her lips, eyes flickering up to meet his. “You bedded Daenerys, didn’t you?”

“Aye. I bedded her.”

She nods, a quiver in her chin, a tension in her brow, a wetness in her eyes which gleams in the light of the lantern.

“I’m sorry,” he says, taking a step toward her. “I’m sorry, Sansa.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I’m not your wife, Jon. You may bed whomever you like.”

“I didn’t want to bed her.”

Sansa shakes her head, discreetly brushing away a tear. “I don’t know whether that makes it better or worse.”

“I did what I had to, to get back home to you. And to Arya and to Bran.”

“I know.” Sansa swallows thickly and moves a touch closer. “I’m glad you’re home. I missed you.”

“ _I_ missed you. So much.”

She lifts her hand, the tips of her fingers touching the wolves on his gorget. “I was so worried.”

“ _I_ was so worried.” He strokes her cheek with his knuckles. “I thought about you every day.”

(And every night.)

Sansa’s eyes drift down to his lips before meeting his gaze. “Me too."

The need to kiss her swells within him until he thinks he might burst unless he gives in. He wants her more than anything, _needs_ her more than anything, and tilts his face up and does the only thing he can do. Her forehead is cool against his lips, her sigh warm against his throat, her cheek soft against his palm. Then he pulls away, just enough to let their foreheads rest together. Her hands slide up his chest until her fingers graze the beard of his jawline, that small touch sending waves of gooseflesh across his skin. Her breath smells sweet and fresh as it mingles with his and her nose feels cool and gentle as it brushes against his and her hum sounds soft and delicious when he grips the warm curve of her waist and pulls her closer.

She angles her head, just a touch. He squeezes her waist, slides the fingers of his other hand through her hair until he cups the back of her head. She breathes his name against his lips and she’s so close, so close now to doing something he promised himself he’d never allow.

“Don’t,” he whispers.

“Why not?”

“We can’t.”

She rubs the tip of his nose with her own. “Don’t you want to?”

“Of course I want to. But we can’t. You know we can’t. It’s not right and I refuse to dishonor you. You deserve so much more than that, Sansa.”

“We might die. Any day now, we might die without ever knowing what it’s like. I want to kiss you, Jon. I want to know what it’s like to kiss you.” She holds his face in her hands (his heart in her hands). “Just once.”

“It wouldn’t be just once.” Jon pulls away, her fingers sliding down his cheeks to his shoulders where he scoops them up and holds them to his chest. “If we give in, we’ll never stop. I know we won’t. One of us has to say no. I’m saying no.”

He lifts her hands to his lips and presses a kiss to her knuckles before letting her go and putting distance between them. “We shouldn’t spend time alone like this. It’s too dangerous.”

She sighs, nodding almost imperceptibly. In the lantern light, her hair glows like fire and her eyes speak of a sorrow and longing he feels so deeply in his own chest that the words spill out of him all of their own.

“I love you, Sansa,” he says and she draws in a shuddering breath and moves closer, eyes bright with the most tempting hope, and he backs away, toward the door. “I just wanted to tell you. Just once.”

He leaves before her eyes can beg him to stay.

 

* * *

 

The world that greets Jon is colder and darker than ever before, and the whispers in the branches of the heart-tree louder even than his regret. How can Bran find sense in those susurrus sounds? Jon once mocked a man for finding wisdom inside the head of a bird, and now his little brother finds wisdom in not only birds but in trees too. And in the past.

He’s waiting for him, Jon knows, with news about Jon’s mother at a time when he hasn’t cared less about that truth. What joy will the name of a whore or a tavern maid bring him now? What change will it bring? What help? For so long he’s wondered, needed to know, and now the prospect only makes him tired.

He flees to his chamber for a kip before he has to slip into his sheepskin again and pretend to see a savior in a woman he still sees as nothing but his captor, while hiding his love for a woman he can never have who became his lifeline when everything seemed lost.

 

* * *

 

“Did you speak to Bran already?”

Brown eyes sparkling, Sam plonks down beside Jon in the seat no longer occupied by Sansa. Once their plates were cleared, she slipped into the crowd to mingle while Jon stayed at the table and hid his longing stares behind a tankard of mead and pretended to listen to the woman he has to call queen until she grew bored with his silence and joined his sister. Now Sansa plays hostess and introduces Daenerys to the bannermen who accept the conqueror's benevolent smiles with poorly hidden skepticism. (And Jon has to hide his stares a little less.)

“Not yet,” he says and takes a bite of honey cake.

“I think you should.”

“Aye, I should. Tomorrow.”

“Or now. Now is good too.”

Jon sighs, rubs a hand over his beard. “I can’t. I have too many things to worry about. I can’t deal with that too. It’ll have to wait. It’s hardly urgent, is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Sam offers a nervous smile. “It might be. It is, I’d say. I think you really ought to go to Bran. As soon as possible. Right now, really.” Without turning his head, Sam glances at Sansa and nods discreetly at her. “If you knew what I knew, you wouldn’t waste a single moment.”

“What?”

Sam nods at her again and enunciates every word pointedly: “If you knew what I knew, you wouldn’t waste a single moment.”

Jon’s heart does a funny dance in his chest. Surely, Sam’s not suggesting… Unless he’s looking at Daenerys--but what impact could the truth about his mother have on her?

“Her hair’s red,” Sam says and Jon’s cheeks turn red too. “And she’s pretty. Very pretty. When I first saw her I thought… No. Not Jon. Then Bran told me who you are and I thought”--Sam hums, tilting his head to the side--”oh, that would make it rather possible after all, wouldn’t it? Then you came home and hugged her in the courtyard and, well”--he scrunches up his nose--”you’re not very good at hiding it, are you? Not even now, the way you stare at her… Perhaps other people think it’s Daenerys you’re staring at, but I know you better than that.”

“Who I am? What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t think you’ll like it, really, but…” Sam glances back at Sansa with a soft look in his eyes. “Every cloud has its silver lining, doesn’t it?”

 

* * *

**SANSA**

* * *

 

Sansa can’t stand her handmaidens’ chatter and she dismisses them with the lie of a headache when it’s her heart that causes her pain. Staring into the mottled surface of the looking glass, where a dejected young woman stares back at her, she brushes her hair with slow strokes. When did her feelings change? She can’t remember. It snuck up on her like the changing seasons, like the sun thawing the winter cold and beckoning buds and blossoms to spring forth, and now she’s brimming with warmth and life without the permission to show it. In a way, life in King’s Landing prepared her for this, prepared her for hiding how Jon gave her the sweetest words she’s ever heard, words that broke her heart and healed it all at once. All evening, she’s hidden it, ignored him, and played her part as gracious hostess while smiling at the woman who’d take everything from her if she could.

(And she can. _Dracarys_. One word and it would all be over.)

Sansa drops the brush and hides her face in her hands and sits there, counting her breaths to calm herself down until a knock comes at the door. After checking her reflection for traces of crying, she cracks the door open just enough to see the person outside. Her stomach swoops. Sansa pulls her bedrobe tighter across her chest. _One of them has to say no. One of them has to say no. One of them has to say--_

“Come in,” she mumbles, stepping aside to let him enter.

She closes the door and takes a steeling breath before turning around and facing a situation they promised each other to avoid. She expects to find that sad longing she so often finds in Jon’s eyes, a new apology on his lips for something he felt forced to do, but joy glitters in his eyes and a smile twitches at his lips and he holds out his hand in invitation for her to come closer. And she does. Despite herself, she does walk closer until she can lay her hand in his and welcome him twining their fingers together. Staring at her mouth, he tugs her closer still, cradles her chin with his other hand, and traces the curve of her bottom lip with his thumb. Sansa shivers. His touch has never before been bold, never carried intent, never held a promise in its tenderness. Nor has his eyes ever been this dark, this enthralling. They draw her in, closer and closer until the surging thrill in the pit of her stomach yanks her out of the spell he put her under.

“Jon,” she whispers, one hand on his chest to create space between them. “One of us has to say no.”

He strokes her cheekbone with light fingers. “If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes?”

“Marry--” Sansa draws in a shuddering breath, eyes averted. “That’s a cruel joke.”

“It’s not a joke. Would you say yes?”

She licks her lips and quirks a brow at him. “If I tried to kiss you, would you let me?”

“Yes.”

Shaking her head, she takes a step back with her arms wrapped around her body. “You wouldn’t before.”

“Well, there’s a reason for that,” he says with a lopsided smile.

Then he tells her a truth that makes her head spin, and when he slides his hands up her spine and holds her so tightly to him she feels his heart beating in time with her own, she's too dizzy to stop him. His lips are so close she feels the heat of them, the scant space between him and her aching to be closed. _Cousin_. Sansa sighs, curling the hair at his neck around her fingers, and angles her head just right and--

“But”--she slips from his arms, frowning--”Lyanna and Rhaegar? You’re not serious. You’re serious? You know what this means!” Massaging her palm, she starts pacing the room to make sense of her racing thoughts. “Jon, this is a disaster. What if Daenerys finds out? She’s going to--”

“Don’t.” Catching her hands, Jon stops her pacing. “Not yet. Please. Can’t it wait? I don’t want to think about what it means, what problems it will cause. Not yet. For now I just want to be happy. Even if it’s only for tonight. Even if it’s only for an hour.”

“But we have to--”

“It can wait. Tonight I just want to love you. It’s all I want. I thought it’s what you wanted too.”

“Of course it’s what I want,” she whispers, tears stinging her eyes, “but someone has to say no. We still can’t marry, Jon. You used to be a king and I couldn’t marry you because you were my brother. Now you’re my cousin, but I can’t marry you because you’re still a bastard. A _Targaryen_ bastard. Perhaps if we ran away… You, me, Arya, Bran, and Ghost. We could run away to Essos. We could--”

“I’m not a bastard.”

Then Jon gives her another truth that makes everything more complicated and dangerous and worrying. But it makes everything easier too, the seductive kind of easy that lets her leave the worries for tomorrow and give into love tonight, give in without hesitation because the world might be ending and she needs to be selfish, to be happy, even if it’s only for one night.

His beard rasps against her palm as she cups his cheek and leans in slowly, so slowly, ready to spring back if he rejects her after all. But Jon tilts his chin up to meet her, to claim her mouth in the softest of kisses and she knows she’ll never kiss another man for as long as she lives. They’re warm and pliant, his lips, tasting of mead and honey. They’re generous and loving just as his hands on her back are gentle and respectful and she gets lost in the warmth of his embrace until it wakes something within her, a hunger she’s done her best to repress ever since he held her in a cold courtyard and made her feel safe for the first time in years. Sansa writhes against him, tells him with her body that she needs more, something _hot_ , something deep and greedy to sate that hunger before it drives her wild. Her fingers wrap around his curls and tug his head back and her tongue snakes in between his lips and Jon welcomes her with an eagerness that leaves her body weak, her mind weak, and some part of her knows she should stop this now before they go too far. But his arms are strong and steady around her and his teeth are nipping at her throat and when they undress one another with trembling fingers and fall into bed together, she hears herself begging him to dishonor her after all.

“Please,” she whispers, “ _please_. I need you.”

_(I need to make you mine.)_

But he only whispers back, “Not yet, my love. Not until we’re wed,” and then he pleasures her with fingers and lips and tongue until she’s biting into the pillow to muffle the cries of her release.

(And when they cuddle up in bed afterwards, when the kisses they share taste of both him and her, she understands she already made him hers a long time ago--just as he made her his--and they fall asleep with their legs entangled and their souls entwined.)

 

* * *

**JON**

* * *

 

Each morning, those iron bands snap closed around Jon’s heart to calm it, to protect it when he must offer his arm, his smiles, and his lies to his captor. A woman whose bed he’s able to avoid only because servants talk and the lords can’t know about what took place on that ship sailing north until after the wars. Those are the excuses he gives his aunt and his scars ache each time.

Each night, he opens the cage and lays his heart bare as he lays himself bare in Sansa’s arms even though servants talk and he sometimes wonders whether any of them have noticed their lady no longer sleeps alone. A wet spot on the sheets. A dark curly strand of hair clinging to a pillow. A black sock forgotten under the bed. But no odd looks follow him, and no whispers flow through Winterfell about the bastard and his beautiful sister and all the ways they’ve found to pleasure one another without risking a babe in her belly.

 

* * *

**SANSA**

* * *

 

Bran has seen the dead marching closer. Tomorrow they’ll be at Winterfell and so tonight the armies will ride out to meet them, to stop them. Sansa kneels before the heart-tree to pray, the snow around it trampled by countless pairs of feet of the people having already done the same. She’s barely settled down before she hears snow crunching beneath boots and smells the oil and leather of his armor.

“So you’re praying after all?”

“Aye. I’m praying after all.” He sinks to his knees next to her. “I have things to pray for now.”

She bends her head in respect for the gods and prays for victory and safety and life. She prays for love and spring and the future. She prays for a moment just like this, when they will kneel side by side and offer their vows to the gods and rise as husband and wife. She prays until the snow has soaked through the many layers of her clothes to dampen and chill her knees, and when she opens her eyes and Jon offers his hand to help her rise, she knows he prayed for the same.

(In her heart she thinks they’re already wed.)

“Will you come by my chambers and say goodbye before you leave?” she asks.

“Nothing could stop me.”

Then he kisses her hand and leaves her there.

They rarely go anywhere together anymore, rarely interact at all in front of others. Every day she waits for someone to catch them, to figure them out, to read in their body language the true reason for this newfound happiness none of them can properly hide despite their best efforts. But Daenerys and her advisers think she’s the source of Jon’s smiles and the Northerners think Sansa is putting on a brave face. But then, she supposes, they always were easy to fool.

“I knew it.”

Sansa jolts. From the deep black between the trees a shadow breaks free and slides forward on feet that make no sound.

“You and him. I knew it.”

“Not here,” Sansa says and leads her sister to the broken tower where she lights the lantern and places it on a fallen beam.

Arya walks into the light, her face soft and tone light. “When did it start?”

“After we knew.”

“Lie.”

“Before he left. But we never did anything. Not until after we knew.”

“Have you…” Arya’s nostrils flare.

“Not yet.”

“Yet.”

“We’re waiting until we get married. If we ever get married,” Sansa says, ducking her head. “As long as Daenerys thinks he’s hers we have to be careful. And if she survives the war, we have to--”

“She won’t survive.” Arya pulls out her dagger and twirls it easily between her fingers. “I’ll make sure of it. I’ll make sure you get to marry your precious prince.”

“Do you think so little of me? I don’t love him because he’s a prince or the heir to the Iron Throne. I don’t care about that. I love him for _him_.”

“I know.”

“But you don’t approve.”

“No. It’s disgusting.” Arya slides the dagger back into its sheath. “I’ll never approve, but I accept it. You make him happy. He tries to hide it, but I can tell. That’s all that matters.”

“He makes me happy too.”

“I know.” Arya rolls her eyes with a good-natured smile. “I suppose that matters too. Come on. I’ll escort you back to your chamber, lady Stark. Even though I know who’s waiting in it.”

 

* * *

**JON**

* * *

 

Jon runs his fingers through copper hair, the light of the hearth playing in the silky strands. Soon he’ll slip back into his clothes, slip out of her chambers, and ride into battle with her taste lingering on his tongue, clinging to his skin, imprinted on his memory. If he dies tonight, at least he’ll die surrounded by her even though she’ll be safe in her castle.

“You’re coming back to me,” Sansa murmurs into his chest where she lays half-sprawled atop him.

“I can’t promise that.”

“Yes, you can.” She lifts her head and bores her eyes into his. “You’re going to live, Jon. You’re going to live and come back to me and marry me. Promise.”

With a deep sigh, he brushes away a strand of hair from her cheek and opens his mouth to explain that this is different, that the Night King always seems to win, but despite her steady gaze, her chin wobbles and her breaths tremble and he hears himself promise anyway.

"I love you," she whispers and he seals his promise with a kiss. 

 

* * *

 

They fight for a whole night so dark only the fire blazing over the fields provide any light. There are moments when he thinks he won’t be able to keep his promise. Moments of endless clashing over snowy plains full of enemies, of burning the dead before they can rise again, of protecting his little brother who finally manages to shatter everything dead with a magic Jon will never understand. Part of him expects to shatter too, but when the last shard of the Night King falls to the ground, Jon’s still standing.

As is his captor.

As they make their way back, he binds his heart again and when Winterfell finally rises against the horizon, he pulls those bands even tighter around his heart. The joy and relief that light up Sansa’s eyes when she sees him die the instant they land on the woman on his arm. A woman who pulls him to a stop and clings to him, preventing him from embracing the one he truly loves, and dark thoughts fill his mind. _I wish you’d fallen._   _I wish you’d died along with your dragons._

“Please.” Daenerys looks up at him with wet eyes, lip quivering. “Please stay with me tonight, my wolf. I need you. I lost my children.”

His arms ache for Sansa who still stands in the courtyard, waiting for a hug that’ll never come.

“I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“Why not? We’re free to love one another now.”

Free. He’ll never be free, not as long as his captor lives and yet he knows he can never kill her.

Arya’s by her sister’s side now, watching Jon and Daenerys with a thoughtful look on her face. She killed all the Freys, he knows. Every single male Frey in one fell swoop and he can’t even make himself kill one woman. But he can't make himself love her either. He can't make himself pretend. Not anymore.

“Why do you keep staring at her?” Daenerys asks, her top lip drawn tight to bare her teeth. “Lady Sansa. You’re always staring at her.”

“Because I love her,” he says and the iron bands around his heart creak.

“Love her? I thought you loved me.”

Fire burns in her eyes and _dracarys_ rests on her tongue, but the dragons are dead and her armies are decimated. Many fell in the battle, even more fell from the cold, and the rest is tired and injured and sick. What harm can she do now? Wage a war against him and his people, he supposes, but they’re on even footing now in a land that isn’t hers, will never be hers. She’s nothing but a lamb trapped in a den of wolves.

“I never did.”

He turns his back to her and walks toward his future, the iron bands crumbling into dust.

 

* * *

 

(The next morning Daenerys strolls through Winterfell as if she knows every stone, every step, every nook and cranny, as if the ragged gray fur of a wolf is hidden beneath her black-and-red scales, and Jon exhales his relief. He's finally free.)

 

* * *

 

Among the roots of the heart-tree sits the King in the North with the woman he loves snug in his arms, her head leaning against his shoulder and her legs stretched out between his over the green grass. Her hair tumbles down her chest, the ends tickling his bare forearms and the scars etched upon his skin. 

“Do you remember what we talked about that day, when you were leaving for Dragonstone?”

“Scars, wasn’t it?”

Sansa hums softly, fingers following those scars whose stories she already knows. Just as she knows the stories behind the scars at his eye, the ones on his back, on his thighs, on his chest, on every part of him, just as he knows the stories behind hers. They’ve mapped them out with fingers and lips and tongues. They’ve asked and answered in murmured voices in private moments and his scars never ache anymore.

“Scars, yes,” she says, “and what else?”

”Husbands?”

“Mm. Among other things.”

Sansa weaves their fingers together and brings his hand to the flat of her stomach, the cotton of her pea green dress soft against his palm. “Do you still like Robb for a boy?”

Jon draws in an uneven breath, the tips of his fingers digging gently into her belly as though he can feel the life therein when it must be younger even than the spring surrounding them. A life just starting to grow when he was starting to wonder whether it ever could, whether his death and resurrection had stolen that dream from him. Leaning back against the fat trunk of the heart-tree, he whispers his thank you to its ever-red crown and he imagines he hears a blessing when it whispers in return. A son. He sees him so clearly already, his and Sansa's son, with her blue eyes and his dark curly hair and Bran's freckles and Rickon's smile and Arya's spirit.

“Aye,” Jon says, nuzzling his wife’s neck, “I still like Robb for a boy.”

 

_The end_


End file.
